Month: April 2021

Is a vaccine a public good?

Prabhudesai asked: Is a vaccine a “public good”?

In economics, goods that are non-rival (consumption of the good by someone does not decrease the amount available for others to consume) and non-excludable (no one can be prevented from consuming) are called pure public goods. By that definition, clearly a vaccine is not a pure public good.

A good that is non-rival but excludable is called a “club good” — a large park in a gated community, for example. A good that is rival but non-excludable is called “common pool” — a pasture for grazing cattle with no fences, for example. 

Continue reading “Is a vaccine a public good?”

Elementary, my dear

On top of being one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century CE, Feynman was a brilliant teacher. He presented complex ideas in elementary terms. Of course, one needed bring intelligence to the table. Best if one had an infinite amount of intelligence when it came to understanding the most elementary ideas.

“I am going to give what I will call an elementary demonstration. But elementary does not mean easy to understand. Elementary means that very little is required to know ahead of time in order to understand it, except to have an infinite amount of intelligence.”

The End is Near for the RoP

Some people would like humanity to regress to the savagery of 7th century CE Arabia but their days are numbered. Chief reason for the rapid decline and death of the savagery is the internet and smartphone revolution.

Don Boudreaux on “Covid Tyranny”

tyranny-brancoDon Boudreaux over at Cafe Hayek makes very important points:

A government that acts without rules, that consistently changes course in favor of exercising ever-more and longer-lasting power, and that now refuses to publicly state guidelines for ending its unprecedented assault on ordinary human liberties is tyrannical. I don’t see how this word fails to accurately describe today’s British government – as well as many other governments across the globe. Continue reading “Don Boudreaux on “Covid Tyranny””